Ewan McGregor -“…he took preventative action before starring on Broadway last year, tweeting about his use of an app called Conquering Anxiety.”

Laurence Olivier –” ..suffered five years of agonising dread following a press night in 1960,when he found his voice diminishing and the audience “beginning to go giddily around”….The venerable Sybil Thorndike gave him trenchant advice “Take drugs, darling, we do”!

So why aren’t you on the list?

Well, I bet it’s because you have your own techniques for minimising the problem.

Here are three recommended techniques …

1. Don’t take drugs, and don’t take alcohol either.

2. Remember you’ve got a message you want your audience to hear, and they, if they’ve been given a free choice to attend, want to hear it. Enjoy the recognition they’ve given you, just by turning up!

3. Use your nerves to your advantage. Let them fuel your preparation. Prepare, prepare and prepare, so that when you stand up to present you have no regrets.

Final word and a bonus piece of advice from the pianist Steven Osborne, also on Susannah’s list…“Chiefly he urges a sense of proportion – “Ask yourself; when I’m on my deathbed, will I still care about the fluffed note in bar 14”!

Polly Barr, Managing Director, Sales and Service BT Sport, wrote to me recently to tell me they were increasing their charges.

I tried to respond and ask her to defer the charge.

No you can’t respond, said BT Sport…you can’t reply to this email, OK!

OK! So I went looking for another channel of communication to the MD Sales and Service……and eventually found it……the only trouble is that the acknowledgement from BT Sport said that a proper reply might take ten days!

Ten days Polly! This is 2017 not 1817. I thought you were world leaders in telecomms……ten days!

BT are clearly not keen on talking to customers.

Does your business take up to ten days to respond to your customers? It doesn’t does it?

Coshing is the practice used by airlines to manipulate the sleeping patterns of passengers by raising the temperature on long flights, usually of five hours or more, to calm passengers and give flight attendants a break.

Medical experts contend that the practice amounts to mass sedation.

As Dr Ian Perry, a London based physician and international aviation consultant said – “Passengers may get off a plane feeling tired and wretched, with sticky eyes and numbing headache……”

Has it happened to you?

Well, if you are in business the answer is almost certainly yes, even if you have never flown!

That’s because many business presenters adopt the same practice, they induce sleep and mass sedation in their audiences.

They cosh them! They leave them feeling tired and wretched….!

So, whats the answer?

Well, it’s difficult to influence other presenters to take action but you can do something about your own impact.

Don’t cosh your audiences, as it’s all so unnecessary, and so easily avoided. Seek help and advice from someone like yours truly, read books, subscribe to blogs like this one, and leave your audiences feeling fresh and inspired, after their flight with you!

Why not become – The Worlds Favourite Presenter? (see what I did there?…British Airways and all that jazz……!!!)

In the film Apollo 13, the character of Jim Lovell, played by Tom Hanks, is commenting on the fact that Neal Armstrong had recently walked on the moon and he uttered the thought provoking words shown above….

“Today, World AIDS Day, my secret is, believe it or not, I get incredibly nervous before public speaking, no matter how big the crowd or the audience,” the typically mischievous bachelor confessed. “Despite the fact that I laugh and joke all the time, I get incredibly nervous, if not anxious actually, before going into rooms full of people when I’m wearing a suit.”

Getting nervous means you care. It means you care about your audience. It’s good to care!